We are all under attack. Every day we are being bombarded with images, many of which are specifically chosen to make us doubt ourselves. "Am I attractive?" must be the most common question, usually followed by the answer, "No, not without one of these." But there is another question eternally worming its way under our skin too: "Do I need to get away? Do I want to go there?"

The travel industry wraps us up in a world where beaches are never sullied with plastic flotsam, and mountains are unscathed by pylons, ski lifts or mining. It's total make‑believe, we all know that, but the advertisers know what works for them.

This would seem to present the travel photographer with something of a dilemma. Do I go along with this, forever editing out what seems unsuitable and flirting constantly with cliche, or do I subvert it and head for the other side of the tracks, with the municipal dump and the social problems? Are you utopian or dystopian?

Clearly, there are astonishing images to be taken within both camps. But there is another point of view, one that believes travel photography is about capturing what is different, beautiful and surprising in places that are new to us – the very essence of why we love travelling. So I say forget the tourism industry and get back to the essentials of travel: embrace all the opportunities that journeys throw at us and make great pictures that will provoke, inspire and delight people.

Moments multiplied

Digital cameras made travel photography much more enjoyable. Who can remember the days of film and the dread that accompanied the number 36? It always arrived in the film counter window at the same time as that great shot – the one that got away – appeared in front of you. Now there are no excuses: you can shoot and experiment in real time. The decisive moment, however, still needs to be captured. Sometimes that moment is so brief that precise timing is vital, as in this shot of a dog leaping on Aberdovey beach (main image).

A horseman in Georgia. Photograph: Kevin Rushby

On other occasions, you've got a little more time. For the photo of the horseman in Georgia (above) I had about 30 seconds, but I was on horseback too and every time I dropped the reins to shoot, the bloody animal moved. In the end I held the reins in my teeth.

A medo pit viper and its captor. Photograph: Kevin Rushby

Digital SLR cameras now offer sensitivity levels that could not be imagined in the film era. Look through the menu and locate the ISO control. It will probably offer an automatic setting and then numbers from 100 to 1,600, or even much higher (my Canon EOS 7D goes to 12,800). The lower the number the greater the quality of the image; the higher the number the greater the sensitivity to light. By raising the ISO setting you can continue using the camera in very low light, albeit with a decreasing quality of image. With the sensitivity to light set so high, even a head torch becomes a useful light source. In India's north-east jungles I found myself hunting snakes, waist-deep in fast-moving river water at night. It was pitch dark and the flash destroyed the atmosphere of a night-time snake hunt. With a couple of torches, however, I managed to get this shot of a rare Medo pit viper and its captor (above).

Having said that, turn down the flash power and it can add a subtle sparkle to dull scenes, lifting a picture out of the ordinary. Combine it with a slow shutter speed and you have a potent mix, as seen in this image of Masai dancers' feet (below).

Masai dancers. Photograph: Kevin Rushby

People power

Portraits of local people are essential to any visual record of a place, but many photographers are tentative, fearing difficulties. One thing is certain: talking to people is the best way around any problems. Once in a conversation it can be much easier to get permission and also, crucially, a little co-operation.

Photograph: Kevin Rushby

This man from the Nyishi tribe in Arunachal Pradesh, India (left), had come down from the hills to catch his first sight of a European and he had come with lots of friends. Getting a decent shot of him was not easy: there were crowds of people who were pushing in, all wanting to be in the photo. In the end, with lots of smiling and persuasion, I manoeuvred the man out of the crowd and against a background that would show off his ornate traditional headdress – an item that would put an Ascot fascinator to shame.

Good portraits need a lens of around 85mm on a traditional full-frame camera. It's useful to have a large aperture on the lens, too (that means an f-number of between 1 and 2), as this allows the depth of field to be kept small.

Up close and personal

Boys playing on a Yemeni beach. Photograph: Kevin Rushby

With groups of people, I like to get in very close – so close the camera is almost touching. It can take a bit of nerve sometimes and it also needs the right lens. I use a 10‑22mm zoom, which equates to around 16‑35mm on a full-frame camera. That is very wide and there can be some distortion – subjects with long noses are not going to be happy! The plus side is the viewer feels right in with the action. Children, of course, have more patience than adults and will often happily replay a scene for you – like these boys on a Yemeni beach, who must have raced into the water a dozen times for me (above).

Keep an open mind

An animal tracker I once spoke to described how he managed to spot animals when no one else could see them. "I don't stare," he said. "I let my eyes go soft." To me, that rather mysterious strategy means avoiding any predictions about what is going to appear.

A fossil exposed in the rocks at low tide. Photograph: Kevin Rushby

Early one morning on the North Yorkshire coast, I was walking along what is known as the scars – a flat, rocky, inter-tidal zone. What I wanted was a shot of one of the rock pools, which fill up with sea anemones, shellfish, crabs and small fish. It was tricky, but I had my camera ready in an Aquapac, a useful thing to carry for impromptu underwater shots. This fossil (above) was sitting there in the rock, probably thinking: If I don't move, he won't see me. He was almost right. If I hadn't walked directly over him, my rock pool fixation would have won out.

That same animal tracker, the one with soft eyes, had a strategy for tuning in to his environment. Before he went tracking he would sit in silence under a tree and think of nothing: only listen and watch, without moving, for 30 minutes. I failed to follow it that morning, but give it a go: it works well for camera hunts, too.

Transport and movement are at the heart of any journey, and any photographic account of that journey ought to contain some record of how you moved around. Try and capture the mood of a journey with a photograph. The shot could be a lonely figure silhouetted against a stormy sky as it trudges up a mountain ridge, or something that reflects the squeeze of a tube train in rush hour.